


Wind Gets In (The Red Blood to the Bruise Remix)

by newredshoes



Category: Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 15:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7538284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look, we know enough today to say it for certain: towns that had them a wolf didn’t get any biters. And yes, we say it with shame now: we listened to the witch and we chased ours out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wind Gets In (The Red Blood to the Bruise Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Every Cloak Has It's Weakness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261716) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



When that wolf jaunted into town, barefoot in a three-piece suit, we should have thrown her a ticker-tape parade. As it was, one morning the train pulled out of the depot and someone had set up shop in one of the shuttered storefronts on Main Street. Lines of boys looking to make a dime hauled boxes inside off the back of a truck. Through the big windows, you could see all kinds of gewgaws and flashy magic laid out on the freshly built shelves. Citizens would crowd on the sidewalk, trying to see how the wolf was filling and labeling her shelves.

Only the old witch didn’t trust her. “You mark my words,” she told the baker that day. “A wolf is a wolf is a wolf is a wolf, and we ought to prepare ourselves.”

“I think she only wants to help,” said the baker, wrapping up the soft, sweet bread that went easy on the witch’s gums. “We could use some economy around here, after all.”

“Not her kind,” huffed the witch. “There’s nothing worth that.”

The baker didn’t listen. She served up dozens and dozens of sweets and pastries for the wolf’s grand opening when she was asked.

“Hard times!” the wolf cried like a tent preacher or a union man. “The world is uncertain, the world is opening up. But I’ve traveled far and wide, I’ve learned how it is all over. You have to outsmart everything that’s trying to find its way inside your walls. I want to share that with you — I want to live among people who know what I know! Please, I invite you to take stock of my wares: I’ve got wards for keeping ghosts out, potpourris for safeguarding from fairies, seed packets for the right medicinal gardens, talismans to draw the brokers of good luck!”

The folk cheered, and raised their lemonades high. The wolf learned all of their names and faces, and the town welcomed her, from her quick golden eyes to her sharp, easy smile.

That night, she knocked on the old witch’s front door. The old witch found her holding a small bag of pebbles, tied up nice with a ribbon. The witch’s granddaughter peered up at the wolf from behind her; she was bundled up in a tatty old cloak, red as a cranberry, red as a pomegranate seed. Magic sprayed off it like the scent of an orange as it’s peeled.

“Evening,” the wolf said, and tipped her trilby hat and gave a little bow. “I was sorry not to see you at my store opening today. I wanted to say my hellos.”

“I’m not particularly happy to see you,” the witch said. “I don’t think you’ll do this town much good.”

The wolf removed her hat and pressed it to her chest, sincerely. “Ma’am, I know my kind has a bad rap, and this is a small town far from an awful lot. But there’s no more bounties on us, no more laws. The government’s told everybody how we belong anywhere we please. I came because this town looks lovely, and it looks like it could use my help.”

“I’m no bigot and I’m no bumpkin,” the old witch said. “I was at school for magic, you know.”

“I do,” the wolf cut in smoothly. She held out the mesh drawstring bag. “Which is why I thought you’d appreciate these. Takes a discerning eye to know their worth. For you, with my compliments.”

The old witch looked at the wolf’s thick, smooth claws and furry knuckles. She looked at the pebbles, which she knew the wolf had dredged from a very particular river, and which would confound bad spirits if laid along their windowsills. “You should find a buyer for those,” the old witch said. “I can take care of my own, thank you.”

The little girl was looking up at the wolf now from behind the old witch’s elbow. The wolf gave her a kindly smile, her hat still in hand. “Evening, sweetheart,” she said.

“That’s enough,” said the old witch. She stepped in front of the girl, but not enough to block out the cape. “I’ll ask that you’ll be on your way.”

The wolf only smiled. “I’ll kill you with kindness yet, ma’am. This town needs me, and you’re part of it too. You don’t know what I’ve seen out there that’s coming.”

“Can’t be worse than you,” the old witch said, and with that, she shut the door.

Here’s the thing you have to know about the old witch, and this is straight from that girl, her granddaughter, when she got a little too grown up. The old witch was a proud woman, proud of her stubbornness and proud of her incomplete education. Witching school had kicked her out, back in the day. She wore it as a badge of honor her whole life that she’d bucked the system and done just fine on her own. 

Take that cloak, for example: a real masterpiece, a very fine bit of folk craftsmanship. But it was just one little cloak. It was labor-intensive, and imperfect, and no factories could touch it. The old witch didn’t care for these times, and the times didn’t give two hoots to rub together about her.

Can’t say that made her special. It wasn’t a very kind time to most, though we were still thinking the world could be kind to us. We did have some good times. That summer the blackberries came in so thick we have sweet winters even now. Carl Vega saved enough to buy that guitar, and he sang for all of us under strings of lights in the square by city hall. You remember that summer? The train made more stops than ever. We all went home safe every night under the wolf’s spells. The richer we made her, the more she spent on us. It seemed like she would stay — so said everyone who saw her stepping out with pretty Briar Rose, who listened when that wolf sang, and delighted in her.

The train brought in visitors too: cousins whose farms had dried up, miners fleeing a lung sickness they’d never seen before. It was nice, being a refuge, wasn’t it? The old witch didn’t think so. She sat with all those outside folks, where everyone could see. She visited and listened and kept their confidence; anyone who asked simply got a shake of her head. “Those poor dears,” the old witch would say. “They’ve been through so much.”

We all knew how bad it was getting outside the county line. That’s why we listened when the old witch began asking, quietly, “How does she know?”

How was it the wolf knew just when the bone-hawks would descend, and how we could keep our skinny cattle from being stripped where they stood? How was it no one else could ever get the back ways clear of road-haints? How was it she knew the conditions that biters liked best? Where did she really come from? Who did she know and talk to on the outside?

 _How_ does she know?

How _does_ she know?

How does _she_ know?

How does she _know_?

The baker didn’t like it, but she tried to keep the peace generally with all her customers, so she shrugged as the register dinged and clacked. “I know you may have heard stories about wolves,” she said, “but most of those just were never true.”

The old witch took her change slowly, knowing her granddaughter stood listening at her side, knowing how many people were in line behind her. “Some stories survive for so long because they’re always true,” she said.

We all began to understand our growing disquiet. Why was it we were so safe? What were we being kept safe for? We began pressing Briar Rose, first to stop her relations with the wolf, then to spy, then to see how she liked it when we came for both of them. Don’t pretend it wasn’t you, or that you told anyone to quit. It was all of us. We didn’t know anything. The town was so cut off. We were so hungry for something knowable, even in our growing comfort. We’d have eaten sawdust if it would help us understand the world.

The wolf sure noticed. She began making house calls, checking in and selling door to door when no one would be seen coming to her shop anymore. “I know what you don’t,” she’d warn. “I’ve seen the towns the biters clean out. I’ve watched barren fields crack wide open and pour out ghosts. I get ahead of that wherever I can; I want to keep it back however I can.”

But we stopped listening to her. She was here to eat our children — hadn’t she already turned Briar Rose’s good head? She was an advance scout, taking all our wealth before leading the world’s bad news right to our hearths. She was a wolf, and a wolf is a wolf is a wolf is a wolf.

That broke her heart, that we thought that. Now we’d take it back if we could. But the train stopped bringing shipments, and the shelves in her shop started getting dusty. No one saw her much anymore, but the old witch made herself very useful. Everyone wanted her help now. She was almost accredited, and look how well she protected her granddaughter, that sweet helpful girl in her red, red cloak.

The old witch’s granddaughter found the wolf on the forest footpath one evening at twilight, one small hobo bundle hanging from a stick on her shoulder. She was examining a great oak and didn’t seem to notice her, which gave the girl a good look at her, straight on. The wolf had a slim build, sleek lines and a face that couldn’t hide anything. Her three-piece suit was wrinkled now. The girl held her breath.

“Evening, sweetheart,” the wolf said, without looking her way.

The girl clutched her basket. The wolf was blocking her route home. It was getting dark, and she wanted to hurry. There was word of a sickness that only came out at night; you had to breathe it in to be afflicted. It came from a tree or a weed somewhere and nobody knew which. When the wolf did turn her head, her eyes flashed yellow in the dimness.

“Sure is a nice place,” the wolf said with a sigh. “I’ve really liked it here. Fine people. Kind people.”

“You’re leaving,” the girl said, looking at the wolf’s little pack.

“Yeah,” said the wolf. “Gonna find some other nice people out there.” She slipped one paw into her pocket and faced the girl in full. The girl tugged her red cloak as close as she could, but she stood rooted to the spot as the wolf came closer. “I got a message for that grandma of yours,” the wolf said. “You know if she’s home?”

The girl swallowed. “I can… I can take you to her.” She could: she knew there was an axe by the woodpile. She was big enough to swing it now.

The wolf’s shoulders straightened. “Nah,” she said. “Just pass this on to her for me, will you? You listening?” The girl nodded. The wolf’s eyes narrowed. 

“Listen hard. I’m leaving this county, and when my scent is gone, no other wolf is coming for you. I’ve made sure that all the wolves in these woods know they ain’t welcome here. No wolves to eat up your children, no wolves to rob you blind for trinkets, no wolves to sniff out the rot — and it’s starting, kid. It’s starting here. You got a month, maybe six weeks, before your first biters catch wind of this place. They don’t come where there’s wolves, because we’re not food for them. We rip ‘em to shreds and aren’t afraid of their blood, and we spread it on the county line as a warning they can comprehend. No more wolves are gonna come take care of you, not your bugbears or your barn-wraiths or your broken wards. No one else is going to bring you tales from the far reaches, tell you what’s coming. You don’t want us and our help, fine. Hope your grandma’s up to the task. You got that?”

The girl nodded. The cloak’s magic crackled against her skin. She tried to keep her breath as shallow as possible. The wolf nodded to herself and turned on her heel. “Wait!” the girl cried out, and the wolf paused.

“The night-sickness that’s going around,” the girl began. “Is it close?”

The wolf hesitated. “It’s waterborne,” she said finally. “It’s not ‘cause of the night, it’s ‘cause that farm’s drawing from a tainted well.”

“How can we—?”

But the wolf just shook her head. She stepped off the footpath, and with her bare feet, she melted into the woods.

The old witch couldn’t have been more pleased with herself. She strolled past the wolf’s empty storefront the next morning, ripping off little pieces of her sweet bread like cotton candy. “Feels like I can breathe again,” she remarked to a passerby. “Feels like we’ve got our town back now.”

The woman craned her neck and took in the sallow, overbright sky. “Bad wind’s on its way,” she said. “You feel that, in the air?”

“I know these things,” the old witch said. “We’re better off than we’ve ever been.”

The passerby shook her head. Beneath the skin of her cheek, something shimmered, something gray and sick. The old witch drew in a breath, but it probably wasn’t anything. Nothing like that should ever happen here.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Sumi, for giving me so many fun options to choose from! I hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks to my indomitable beta, as well as Tom McRae for your infinitely earwormable yet incredibly dark ["Me and Stetson."](https://youtu.be/htpvwriHe7k)


End file.
